Beatriz Ramo is teaching “Architecture and Market” at the Academie voor Architectuur en Stedenbow in Tilburg.
more info: http://www.fontys-aas.nl
"ARCHITECTURE AND MARKET" (Summary of the Presentation)
Today in the Architecture and Urban Planning discipline, we see how a new phenomenon has emerged. Market powers shape, as never before, the cities and influences their identity. This has created a kind of architecture that is driven by commercial forces and desperation for uniqueness.
Throughout history, architecture grandeur addressed to many different forces: gods’ veneration, celebration of the Empire, religious worshiping, authoritarian representations…etc.
Nowadays, not just public institutions, but private clients are commissioning the buildings that create the image of the city (e.g. Allianz Arena stadium built by Herzog & de Meuron in Munich, the Swiss Re Tower by Norman Foster in London or all the recently opened Prada stores in New York, LA or Tokyo, by OMA and Herzog &de Meuron). (…) Architecture has become a product of quick consumption. Architects’ names are brand for buildings as Prada or Tiffany's are for clothes or jewellery.
(…) Since these days important information is publicised in newspapers, on television and in the internet, architecture has been freed from communicating, and it rather “represents”. Then it can assume whatever shape the architect sees fit: a wave, a flower, an eye…(…) The aim of the course is - from our position of architects and urban planners - to understand generally the forces that are shaping architecture.
Students must get familiar with the topic, as part of the up-to-date architecture “history”. They are going to create this chapter by researching into the theme.
The research process will start analyzing the present condition of architecture production by studying a number of examples. We will go back on time to see how the relation between architecture and market has developed, and finally the students will give a vision on how the future of this relation may continue.